With the announcement of new Netflix releases — Wednesday and Stranger Things — millions of Italians are getting ready to watch content originally created in English and adapted for the Italian audience (almost always in dubbed versions). Nothing new. Yet we rarely stop to reflect on the consequences of this habit.
In Italy, translation is not the exception: it is the rule. We have long been exposed to translated content — novels, articles, films, video games, comics — more so than in many other European countries. Only 17% of the population watches films or series in the original language. More than 50% of translated books come from English; in comics, the figure exceeds 70%.
All of this has an interesting effect. Translated language is not neutral: it carries narrative models, rhythms and syntactic structures that gradually seep into our Italian. We see it in verbs such as realizzare (used in the sense of “to realise”), supportare (instead of sostenere), or in increasingly common formulas such as “How can I help you?”, “What is your name?”, “Crime scene”. Expressions that sound Italian, but are in fact linguistic calques shaped on English structures.
At Finking, we engage with these dynamics every day. Translating is never just about transferring words: it also means managing interference, choosing when to adhere and when to step back, in order to deliver texts that are clear, natural and truly effective.
